


A Little While Longer

by unrestedjade



Category: Legend of Zelda
Genre: Gen, family stuff, gender nonconforming zelda ahoy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-27
Updated: 2015-05-27
Packaged: 2018-04-01 11:14:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,066
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4017661
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unrestedjade/pseuds/unrestedjade
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Daphnes isn't the best parent in the world.  He's trying.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Little While Longer

**Author's Note:**

> By request, here’s Daphnes and Zelda having some needed father-daughter time. Thanks, anon! I still don’t feel like I’ve pinned Daphnes down yet, but this was a good study.

Daphnes supposed it was wrong for a parent to wish their child to be anything other than what they were.  Even if what they were was  _vexing._   It struck him as being ungrateful, as though his own flesh and blood somehow shamed him.  He maintained, of course, that he only wanted happiness for his daughter.  And yet…

Zelda stood sulking before him.  He’d nearly mistaken her for a page boy, which must have been her intention.  He wondered which lad now found himself short a tunic and breeches, to say nothing of the boots that were certainly not hers.  And her hair!  When had she cut it?  Gods above, it would take ages to grow out.

“Young lady,” he said, feeling far too weary at far too early an hour, “explain this.”

She ducked her head, scuffing her too-large boots in the dirt.  “I wanted to go riding,” she mumbled at the ground.

Daphnes didn’t ask why such a simple task required an outlandish disguise, or the butchery of her hair.  Her reasoning often escaped him.  “Does Lady Impa know where you are?"  He suspected not.  His daughter seemed to have an almost preternatural gift for escaping notice.  She’d very nearly walked by her own father without being recognized.

"I have a quarter of an hour before she finds me."  Zelda turned a pathetic look on him.  She would have been long gone by that time if Daphnes had not spotted her.  Why should she have expected her father to be in the stables so early in the morning?

And now his own plans for a morning jaunt had spoiled her own.  Daphnes knew he couldn’t condone her behavior, but he couldn’t withstand that pitiful expression, as calculated as he knew it to be.  He sighed, and beckoned a passing stable boy. 

"Get word to Lady Impa that the princess is with me,” he said, watching startled recognition spread on the boy’s face.  Zelda passed remarkably well for a page. 

When the boy had gone, Daphnes turned his attention back to his daughter.  This eccentricity couldn’t continue.  It would be far better for her to learn to accept what the gods had given her, instead of persisting in this charade.  She would be happier, in the long run, and more respected.  Life would be easier.  And yet…

Daphnes knew himself to be a selfish man.  The old, familiar guilt settled in his belly at the knowledge that he was failing his daughter, failing the memory of her mother.  But Zelda had cooled toward him these last few years, and he couldn’t bear to hasten that ice along.  If he could see her smile, prop the gates of her heart open for a little while longer…

He set grooms to prepare Zelda’s palfrey and one of his own horses.  Zelda watched them work with eyes as wide as saucers. 

“Understand,” Daphnes said, laying a hand on her shoulder to get her attention, “that we are going to have words later."  She nodded, her excitement only slightly dampened.  Watching her scramble up into Impa’s saddle as though it were the most natural thing in the world, he resolved to let the matter rest for now. 

They passed the morning speaking only of trivial things– the shapes of passing clouds, the various calls of the birds, good-natured teasing as they raced over the fields.  Daphnes directed his mount carefully, smiling as Zelda overtook him in last-second victories, the white tail of her mare streaming like a banner behind her.  He committed her laughter to memory, etching it into his heart like sacred music.  That sound became rarer by the day.

One day, he feared, it may well stop for him altogether.

Zelda brought her mare to a halt at the base of a lone ash tree.  She turned to watch Daphnes crest the hill well after her, healthy color in her cheeks and a triumphant gleam in her eyes.  

"You’re so slow, Papa!”   

“Hey, now!"  Daphnes reined in his horse under the shade of the tree.  "You’ve an advantage, being so light in the saddle.  Be kind to your poor old man."  He feigned wounded pride.

She laughed.  The wind had tousled her short-cropped hair, leaving it standing at all angles like a pile of straw atop her head.  Sidling his horse closer, Daphnes reached out to smooth it down. 

The grin wilted from Zelda’s face.  "I’m sorry,” she said.

“It will grow back,” Daphnes said hurriedly, in hopes of keeping the smile from fading entirely.  “And no one will notice it under your coif, in any case."  He wished he hadn’t drawn attention to it.  Out here, it seemed a petty concern.

He wished, not for the first time, that fate had been a little kinder to them.  That her mother were here to guide her, and him.  That she could simply be his child, and he, simply her father. 

The sun had climbed nearly to its zenith; Daphnes shaded his eyes as he gauged its position.  "So late already,” he said.  “We should head back.”

Zelda nodded glumly and nudged her mare to a trot.  Daphnes kept pace beside her.  He could feel the ice reforming, slowly but surely.  There were many things he wished to say to his daughter.  That he was proud to call himself her father, that he had no need of a son, that she could be happy one day, in the fullness of time.  But his words only ever seemed to pain her. 

There was so little he could do.

He slowed his horse to a walk.  “There’s no need to hurry,” he called after her.  “The horses are tired.”  

Zelda reined in her mare to walk beside him.  She stared out over the plains with an air of resignation about her, like a prisoner returning to the gaol. 

“You know,” Daphnes said, hope mingled with a strange fear in his chest, “this needn’t be the only time this ever happens.  I’m sure Lady Impa would be glad for the rest now and then.”

The barest ghost of a smile returned to Zelda’s face, along with some of her lost light. 

Perhaps next time, he might even convince her to wear her own clothes.  But that conversation would keep until another time.  For now, he held her smile to his heart, a weak flicker that he might yet coax into a flame.


End file.
